Reactions that are otherwise impossible become more likely as temperatures drop.

In recent years, astronomers have detected some simple organic chemicals in the disks of material surrounding some stars. In our own Solar System, these seem to have undergone reactions that converted them into more complex molecules—some of them crucial for life—that have been found on meteorites. So, understanding the reactions that can take place in space can help provide an indication of the sorts of chemistry available to start life both here and around other stars.

Based on a publication in Nature Chemistry, it seems that the chemistry that can take place in the cold clouds of gas of space is much more complex than we had predicted. Reactions that would be impossible under normal circumstances—simply because there's not enough energy to push them forward—can take place in cold gasses due to quantum mechanical effects. That's because one of the reactants (a hydrogen nucleus) can undergo quantum tunneling between two reactants.

The key to understanding the work is the idea of activation energy. Many reactions that are energetically favorable (think burning wood) simply don't happen spontaneously. That's because the intermediate steps of the reaction are higher energy states. You need some additional energy (like a lit match) to push things over the activation energy barrier and get things to run downhill to the product state.

This, as you might imagine, is a problem in a cold gas cloud. With very little energy around, there's nothing available to hop a reaction over an activation energy barrier. On energetic considerations alone, there are some reactions that are simply impossible in that environment. And yet the authors of the new paper actually found that the reaction rate went up as the temperature went down.

The reaction the authors were looking at involved methanol, which has been found in gas clouds, and a hydroxyl radical. The latter is a water molecule with one of the hydrogens stripped away, leaving an unpaired electron. When these two molecules react, the favored outcome is to strip a hydrogen off the methanol, forming water and leaving a methoxy radical behind. Both hydroxyl and methoxy radicals have been detected in space.

Under normal circumstances, the intermediates of the reaction are energetic molecules with two oxygens bound to methanol's lone carbon. They require a fair bit of energy to create, which means there's a large activation energy to the reaction.

Once the temperature drops sufficiently, however, things start to change. At temperatures below 70K, rather than forming a covalently bonded intermediate, the two molecules can form a hydrogen bond. And at these temperatures, that bond will be relatively stable, keeping the two molecules in close proximity for extended periods of time. The proximity allows for quantum tunneling, in which small objects pass through a large energy barrier without occupying the intermediate, high energy states. In this case, one of the protons from the methanol simply tunnels over to the hydroxyl radical to form water, leaving a methoxy radical behind.

Methanol has four hydrogens, but the regular chemical reaction favors the transfer of specific ones when forming the water molecule. The authors found that the preference went away at low temperatures, confirming that something other than standard chemistry was going on here.

The fact that quantum tunneling allows reactions that would never take place in their own right is pretty impressive. But the results are also important because they give us a clearer picture of what's likely to be going on in the neighborhood of distant stars. Because of their distance, it's hard to detect anything other than raw materials around them. To infer the actual chemistry of the gas clouds, we have to look at the raw materials and the conditions, then figure out what reactions are likely to take place. By confirming that otherwise-impossible reactions can take place in these gas clouds, the authors have greatly expanded the range of chemistry we can expect to be taking place. And that can tell us something about the chemicals that are likely to be present in any planets formed under similar conditions.

B: Bacterial forms being present on the planet that could survive in a vacuum and deep freeze (ok, less likely)

C: That this incredibly uncommon planet harboring life is ripped apart by some sort of cosmic force and yet enough matter survives and is propelled out of it's solar system (percentage dropping quickly)

D : That this planet killer event wouldn't be so superheated as to kill everything while splintering the planet (adding a decimal point and a ton of zeros now)

E : That this ejected mass would even encounter another celestial body, much less one that could sustain any form of life (lots of zeros, so many zeros)

F: That the space debris wouldn't otherwise destroy any habitability of the body it smacked into, or that whatever was on-board it would survive the entry to the body or impact (closing in on infinite zeros now)

and G: that these bacteria, now on a new planet, would be able to thaw and adapt to a new hostile environment long enough to reproduce

It is not a good theory. Also, not really related to super-cooled quantum star forges... like at all.

Panspermia is a bad theory for another reason: it just shifts the problem. The question of importance isn't "How did life on earth arise?" but "How did life arise?" and panspermia theories only give an answer to the first, not the second.

C: That this incredibly uncommon planet harboring life is ripped apart by some sort of cosmic force and yet enough matter survives and is propelled out of it's solar system (percentage dropping quickly)

It is not a good theory. Also, not really related to super-cooled quantum star forges... like at all.

Your C is flawed. It doesn't need to be a planet or ripped apart. It could be on anything that could form into a planet (leaving it intentionally vague to not have to mention asteroids, moons, stars, et cetera in a list).

If we assume that your "planet" definition is correct, then the "ripped apart" postulation becomes flawed. It would merely need to be ejected from a planet. This can occur from an external source (an impact event) or an internal source (a volcanic event) both of which are highly likely to occur. Hell, we have Martian meteorites on Earth. Mars might have Terran meteorites.

C: That this incredibly uncommon planet harboring life is ripped apart by some sort of cosmic force and yet enough matter survives and is propelled out of it's solar system (percentage dropping quickly)

It is not a good theory. Also, not really related to super-cooled quantum star forges... like at all.

Your C is flawed. It doesn't need to be a planet or ripped apart. It could be on anything that could form into a planet (leaving it intentionally vague to not have to mention asteroids, moons, stars, et cetera in a list).

If we assume that your "planet" definition is correct, then the "ripped apart" postulation becomes flawed. It would merely need to be ejected from a planet. This can occur from an external source (an impact event) or an internal source (a volcanic event) both of which are highly likely to occur. Hell, we have Martian meteorites on Earth. Mars might have Terran meteorites.

While life could theoretically arise on some rogue asteroid, or bacteria be blown into the atmosphere by Krakatoa 2.0 (and also mysteriously be adapted for life on a on a planet surface or in the bowels of a magma system and yet also be instantly adaptable to the exact opposite ecosystem in space) the point is that the theory combines events of increasingly unlikely magnitude as an explanation. If any of these events on its own were enough to come to a reasonable explanation then sure, fine theory. For them to happen in sequence, not so much.

Also, not so impressed by Martian asteroids on Earth's surface. We are in the same solar system, in nearly identical planes and orbits cosmically speaking. This theory is predicated on a rock bearing the universe's most resilient bacteria wandering hundreds of thousands of lightyears to hit a target that you would have, generously, a one in a billion chance of even coming within 1 AU of, and having one in millions of that kind of target even being able to harbor your growth and existence as a happy alien bacteria interloper.

Also, not so impressed by Martian asteroids on Earth's surface. We are in the same solar system, in nearly identical planes and orbits cosmically speaking. This theory is predicated on a rock bearing the universe's most resilient bacteria wandering hundreds of thousands of lightyears to hit a target that you would have, generously, a one in a billion chance of even coming within 1 AU of, and having one in millions of that kind of target even being able to harbor your growth and existence as a happy alien bacteria interloper.

Even if your numbers are accurate, they are still "likely."

One in a million billion chance of a specific asteroid would be multiplied by the number of asteroids that could possibly contain the bacteria. Which, if it could form in gas clouds is greater than a million billion.

Also, not so impressed by Martian asteroids on Earth's surface. We are in the same solar system, in nearly identical planes and orbits cosmically speaking. This theory is predicated on a rock bearing the universe's most resilient bacteria wandering hundreds of thousands of lightyears to hit a target that you would have, generously, a one in a billion chance of even coming within 1 AU of, and having one in millions of that kind of target even being able to harbor your growth and existence as a happy alien bacteria interloper.

Even if your numbers are accurate, they are still "likely."

One in a million billion chance of a specific asteroid would be multiplied by the number of asteroids that could possibly contain the bacteria. Which, if it could form in gas clouds is greater than a million billion.

In which case the probability is nearly 1.

All I see is an argument about the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin... On both sides.

Also, not so impressed by Martian asteroids on Earth's surface. We are in the same solar system, in nearly identical planes and orbits cosmically speaking. This theory is predicated on a rock bearing the universe's most resilient bacteria wandering hundreds of thousands of lightyears to hit a target that you would have, generously, a one in a billion chance of even coming within 1 AU of, and having one in millions of that kind of target even being able to harbor your growth and existence as a happy alien bacteria interloper.

Why can't life (or the materials needed to make life) be created/evolve on/in an volcanically rocky body flying through space? Hell, a non-active body flying through space would be able pick up ingredients for life mentioned in the article via the creation method in the article and have enough energy to make those ingredients into more complex ingredients.

Panspermia doesn't require life to be created in the short span of hundreds of thousands of years. Anywho, if it did, a nearly 14 billion year old universe had tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands year periods.

Everything I've ever heard of quantum tunneling described it as electrons that tunnel thru from one orbital to another (thereby switching which molecule it is associated with). That's all well and good for getting the electron out of the original water molecule. So how does the proton leave so a hydroxyl radical is left behind?

Maybe I missed it in this article, and can only see the abstract of the paper, but was this work done in a laboratory, or is it all theoretical? The wording implies the former, but it's not explicitly spelled out anywhere.

Everything I've ever heard of quantum tunneling described it as electrons that tunnel thru from one orbital to another (thereby switching which molecule it is associated with). That's all well and good for getting the electron out of the original water molecule. So how does the proton leave so a hydroxyl radical is left behind?

Could we use this type of low temperature quantum chemical reaction in our industrial chemistry?

It is ever more energetically favorable when bulk producing some of these chemicals to lower the temperature and take advantage of quantum tunneling instead of raising the temperature?

Are there any compounds that are very difficult or un-economical to create that become economical using low temperature quantum tunneling chemistry?

Wish the paper authors had tried to answer some of those questions.

Why? there's plenty of energy here on earth to initiate any chemical reactions you want . Besides, you need a lot of energy and nontrivial instrumentation to reach very low temperatures in a closed system

Let's see... no liquid water, not enough energy. As for "the materials needed to make life", that is an entirely different matter, and no one has argued against that here.

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Hell, a non-active body flying through space would be able pick up ingredients for life mentioned in the article via the creation method in the article and have enough energy to make those ingredients into more complex ingredients.

Lacking evidence for that latter claim.

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Panspermia doesn't require life to be created in the short span of hundreds of thousands of years. Anywho, if it did, a nearly 14 billion year old universe had tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands year periods.

Is life forming in potentially good conditions on a single planet in hundreds of thousands of years in your mind really less likely than it forming several billion years earlier in somewhere else in the universe and somehow making it here, alive and well after spending millions of years in space?

Let's see... no liquid water, not enough energy. As for "the materials needed to make life", that is an entirely different matter, and no one has argued against that here.

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Hell, a non-active body flying through space would be able pick up ingredients for life mentioned in the article via the creation method in the article and have enough energy to make those ingredients into more complex ingredients.

Lacking evidence for that latter claim.

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Panspermia doesn't require life to be created in the short span of hundreds of thousands of years. Anywho, if it did, a nearly 14 billion year old universe had tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands year periods.

Is life forming in potentially good conditions on a single planet in hundreds of thousands of years in your mind really less likely than it forming several billion years earlier in somewhere else in the universe and somehow making it here, alive and well after spending millions of years in space?

Right now the idea is a curiosity and nothing more.

The core of panspermia originally .. or at least as I remember it, and let me be absolutely clear I do not support the theory myself, is that life is so common in the interstellar medium that it is basically in everything, particularly in the frozen ort cloud comet producing regions that make up so much of the area of stella systems, but because of that everywhere else you'd happen to look, from rocky asteroid belts to gaseous nebulas. So much so that even the incredibly long odds of surviving orbital transfer wouldn't be limiting as eventually something would survive. Again lets be clear i don't support the theory, in this form nore especially in the bastardize mars to earth please continue our funding degenerate form that nasa's been pushing lately.

Methanol has four hydrogens, but the regular chemical reaction favors the transfer of specific ones when forming the water molecule.

Shouldn't this say "a specific one"? The 3 hydrogen atoms bonded to the carbon are all geometrically equivalent. The single H in the hydroxyl group is the one being transferred if a methoxy radical is left after reaction.

Methanol has four hydrogens, but the regular chemical reaction favors the transfer of specific ones when forming the water molecule.

Shouldn't this say "a specific one"? The 3 hydrogen atoms bonded to the carbon are all geometrically equivalent. The single H in the hydroxyl group is the one being transferred if a methoxy radical is left after reaction.

I think that you are correct. I'm not sure whether CH3O• is the product. I can't access the article, but Fig. 1 seems to show that the activation energy for making •CH2OH is lower than for making CH3O•. If the reaction is kinetically controlled, then •CH2OH would be the product. Still, all those H's are equivalent.

I'm not sure that I understand the tunneling that's proposed. The hydrogen-bound species are HO• and methanol. Hence, a proton tunneling to the unoccupied space creates H-O-H+, with a singly occupied O-H bond. An electron can then move to fill that orbital. However, the proton seems to have landed in a much higher energy state before the arrival of the electron. Also, I imagine that it's possible to calculate the possible geometries of the H-bound states to estimate the distance of tunneling, which should be related to the tunneling barrier.

Methanol has four hydrogens, but the regular chemical reaction favors the transfer of specific ones when forming the water molecule.

Shouldn't this say "a specific one"? The 3 hydrogen atoms bonded to the carbon are all geometrically equivalent. The single H in the hydroxyl group is the one being transferred if a methoxy radical is left after reaction.

It is not quite true to say that the three hydrogens bonded to the carbon are equivalent (although we cannot tell them apart -- especially from here!). While statements that they are equivalent are common simplifications, those hydrogens are in different positions relative to the hydrogen bonded to the oxygen, which will affect their relative reactivity. At 63 K the rotation about the C-O bond is considerably reduced compared to what is observed at 298 K. This is probably even more profoundly true if a hydrogen bond has formed between the methanol -OH and the hydroxyl radical.

There has been a lot of discussion about Panspermia; notice that the original article did not have anything to do with planets.

With all this chemistry, mitigated by a quite different mechanism from planetary chemistry, why not speculate about strange new life forms that are created in the interstellar void? It does not seem any weirder than life forming on a planet (god botherer's aside).

There has been a lot of discussion about Panspermia; notice that the original article did not have anything to do with planets.

With all this chemistry, mitigated by a quite different mechanism from planetary chemistry, why not speculate about strange new life forms that are created in the interstellar void? It does not seem any weirder than life forming on a planet (god botherer's aside).

There has, of course, already been a lot of speculation in SF.

Steve

There are panspermia variants that go for space originated life.

And yes plenty of it in fiction as well. From Anne McCaffrey's Pern (Thread ovoids in the Oort cloud) to Steven Baxter's hard sci-fi Xeelee sequence (where life turns up in places even stranger than the vacuum of space).

Actually I meant something different. I don't mean planetary life origins, I'm thinking about completely unknown sorts of life that the quantum chemistry may empower. There would be some initial problems with the question of what we mean by life, and whether we can recognize it in our limited time frame.

Again, this is nothing original on my part, but I am interested to see a plausible mechanism for active chemistry. Before I read this, huge clouds of hydroxyl ions were very vague and just clouds; now it sounds like there is possibly a lot more going on.

I understood. The Thread in the Pern stories evolved in the Oort cloud, not on the Red Star (though there is no discussion of their evolution, only their current state...Anne was not really a "hard sci-fi" writer). And in the Xeelee sequence, life evolves in the quark-gluon plasma that existed for a few fractions of a second at the beginning of the universe, as well as other odd places. And if you specifically want to talk about gas clouds, there is an intelligent one in Iain M. Banks' "The Algebraist".

Panspermia is a bad theory for another reason: it just shifts the problem. The question of importance isn't "How did life on earth arise?" but "How did life arise?" and panspermia theories only give an answer to the first, not the second.

Indeed not only it shifts the problem, but it does so explaining that now the origin of it will remain out of sight forever, being too far / long time away.Basically this feature alone almost turns it into a religion, rather than a scientific theory.

Why can't life (or the materials needed to make life) be created/evolve on/in an volcanically rocky body flying through space?

Simple: it couldn't, because there is no energy available.That our original paper precisely describes a quantum way to produce unlikely atoms in a cold environment doesn't prevent the need, for any life, to work (and evolve) from an energy source somewhere.No energy available = you just wait.Or then your definition of life involves a pace infinitely slower than ours...

Why is this paper titled "Chemical reactions etc."?The proposed mechanism involves a *nuclear* reaction, even it it is helped by a chemical bonding.Which is quite interesting indeed.It may even have applications on Earth, for all of these guys looking for, you know, cold fusion and all these sort of things.The only issue is, in order to obtain this kind of tunneling in more than 1% of the molecules, what is the delay? Eons, in space, which is affordable there? Or are hours and days reachable?

Why is this paper titled "Chemical reactions etc."?The proposed mechanism involves a *nuclear* reaction, even it it is helped by a chemical bonding.Which is quite interesting indeed.It may even have applications on Earth, for all of these guys looking for, you know, cold fusion and all these sort of things.The only issue is, in order to obtain this kind of tunneling in more than 1% of the molecules, what is the delay? Eons, in space, which is affordable there? Or are hours and days reachable?

A nuclear reaction is one where nuclear particles merge or split. All nuclei are intact. Hence, we are in the realm of chemistry, not nuclear physics.